Last Movie You Watched

[Octave]

HUKKLE (György Pálfi, 2002)
I cannot believe it took me this long to catch up with this one.  I've seen this billed as a parody of Hungarian "village sociology" (?), and the vectors that kept occurring to me were a mashup of Jacques Tati and Bruno Latour.  I thought it was amusing, sometimes quite funny, sometimes crude.  A kitchen-sink black comedy of mise-en-scene, sound-design, and sometimes, anti-humanist slapstick.  *Caveat* I had also been drinking, but I'm pretty sure this movie is at least really good, if not great.  This will almost certainly become one of my favorite films of the Noughties, like, top-50 easily.

Now I will now be seeing his TAXIDERMIA, which I've postponed for years, right away.  He also has a recent feature which is a cut-up with "samples" from apparently hundreds of films, involving a love/romance theme.

[milk]

FWIW I guess I'd happily endorse your ratings with a few little adjustments: downgrading FARGO and NO COUNTRY a little bit; upgrading SERIOUS MAN a little bit; upgrading TRUE GRIT quite a bit (not to 'masterpiece', but still.....though I am surprised how much I liked it and feel the need to see it again to make sure....it was the starry sky near the end that sealed the deal for me, like the snow in HUDSUCKER or a million other similar little Coen "mortality" moments that seem priestly, strange, metaphysical, wonderstruck, bemused); maybe upgrading INTOLERABLE a little?  Maybe just for The Clooney's hungry Mastroiannian alpha-clown teeth?
I guess I'm inclined to see the Coens' "unevenness" as a virtue.  Not unlike other less-commercial but also wildly "uneven" filmmakers like, I don't know, Godard or Fassbinder or Akerman or Oliveira.

And consider: if you're going to suffer a boring movie, isn't it nice to have "all kinds" of boring?  How generous!  But I did not care too much for INSIDE on a  first viewing, either.  I don't really understand the praise, except that I want to see more Oscar Issac; I had to be reminded that he was in DRIVE.

Where do you come down on Lebowski? For No Country, I'm going on my first reaction. It's kind of rare that I make it to the theater. And rarer still that I see something that truly leaves me floored. I still remember the experience and the feeling when the curtain came down. If not a masterpiece, it had a big impact on the big screen. I'm trying to remember what great films I've actually seen on the big screen. When I was in college I had a class in which I saw lots of great things for the first time. And I was probably high to boot! Renoir, Ozu, Fellini, Bergman, Resnais...I saw Love Streams in a revival theater in Paris...but I was really so unprepared for No Country. Another one that did this for me, I'm afraid to admit, was Where the Wild Things Are. Anybody else remember not being able to move from your seat after seeing something?   

[Todd]

Ben Stiller's absurdly large-scale adaptation of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.  It got mostly negative or mediocre reviews when released, and it is entirely predictable and formulaic, but Stiller went all out in effects and location shoots in Iceland, and the result is entertaining, if slight.  I find it hard to be too critical of a film where Sean Pean plays a contemporary photojournalist who shoots Tri-X with a Nikon F3-T, and the line "Stay gold, Ponyboy" gets worked into the script.

[SonicMan46]

A couple of 'oldies' from the past the last few nights:

The Catered Affair (1956) w/ an aging Bette Davis as the mother & Debbie Reynolds as the daughter; Borgnine, a cabbie, the father trying to wed his daughter to the Rod Taylor character - enjoyable film.

Champion (1949) w/ Kirk Douglas, Arthur Kennedy, et al - yet another boxing film; but nominated for multiple Oscars, including Kirk as 'Best Actor' (of course, not a win for him) - a good watch if you like these films - Dave

 

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

Early in the film named after him, Renoir (Gilles Bourdos, dir., 2013), defines his artistic m.o.:  "What must control the structure is not the line," he declares, "It's the color."  Inspired by the painter's creed, this film's producers offer up a movie comprised not so much of a plotline but rather of the colors of the painter's last years.  The focus is not so much on Renoir himself as on his household.  Genius cinematographer Mark Ping Bing Lee ("In the Mood for Love") was enlisted to bring his trademark chromaticism to the film, which - if you are in the mood for Renoir - will charm.  If not, you may be disappointed.  Despite the agony of Renoir's arthritis (his paintbrush is taped to his hand) and the slaughter of the War to End All Wars to the north (two of Renoir's sons do not escape the monster unscathed), this film is nearly as balmy and insouciant as an afternoon on the Côte d'Azur.  It's what the painter would have wanted.

[asin]B00EV1YZKK[/asin]

[North Star]

Yesterday, for the first time:

PULP FICTION

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

Yesterday, for the first time:

PULP FICTION

First time?! Really? What did you think of it?

[TheGSMoeller]

First time?! Really? What did you think of it?

Yeah, I would like to know as well. Especially after spending the past 25 years hearing about it, was it everything it's hyped up to be for you, Karlo? Or has it been a bit overrated?

[North Star]

First time?! Really? What did you think of it?

Yeah, I would like to know as well. Especially after spending the past 25 years hearing about it, was it everything it's hyped up to be for you, Karlo? Or has it been a bit overrated?

I think you must mean 20, not 25 years, Greg - or was it hyped before it was released? In any case, I was three then, and didn't really pay much attention to it..
Obviously I've seen plenty of movies that have been influenced by it (and a couple of later Tarantinos, Basterds & Jackie Brown, and one of the Kill Bill's, I think.).

But in any case, I enjoyed it very much indeed, the stories were interesting, the dialogue & acting excellent. The dividing of the movie into separate acts/scenes without connecting the dots too fastidiously seems to be a device Tarantino is very much fond of. I suppose it might make them more rewatchable, haven't tried that with any of them apart from Jackie Brown yet. Tarantino seems to be fond of making philosophical ideas as entertaining as possible, which is certainly not a bad thing, but its influence might have been less positive.

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

I regard Pulp Fiction as Tarantino's only movie.  Otherwise, he's yet another American cultural embarrassment. 

[Brahmsian]

I personally preferred Jackie Brown, Kill Bill Vol. II and Inglorious Basterds over Pulp Fiction.

[TheGSMoeller]

I think you must mean 20, not 25 years, [b)Greg[/b] - or was it hyped before it was released? In any case, I was three then, and didn't really pay much attention to it..
Obviously I've seen plenty of movies that have been influenced by it (and a couple of later Tarantinos, Basterds & Jackie Brown, and one of the Kill Bill's, I think.).

But in any case, I enjoyed it very much indeed, the stories were interesting, the dialogue & acting excellent. The dividing of the movie into separate acts/scenes without connecting the dots too fastidiously seems to be a device Tarantino is very much fond of. I suppose it might make them more rewatchable, haven't tried that with any of them apart from Jackie Brown yet. Tarantino seems to be fond of making philosophical ideas as entertaining as possible, which is certainly not a bad thing, but its influence might have been less positive.

You're right, 20 years.
And I like Pulp Fiction, it certainly has had a huge influence on cinema. My favorite Tarentino film is Kill Bill Vol. 1 however, I never tire of watching it.

[Brahmsian]

You're right, 20 years.
And I like Pulp Fiction, it certainly has had a huge influence on cinema. My favorite Tarentino film is Kill Bill Vol. 1 however, I never tire of watching it.

That is probably my least favourite Tarentino film.  Sorry, Greg.    I find there is too much over the top violence in the second half of the film.  I prefer Vol. II

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

Over the top violence is the thing.  To paraphrase Gore Vidal, "it's America's only art form."

[Karl Henning]

I regard Pulp Fiction as Tarantino's only movie.  Otherwise, he's yet another American cultural embarrassment. 

I personally preferred Jackie Brown, Kill Bill Vol. II and Inglorious Basterds over Pulp Fiction.

You're right, 20 years.
And I like Pulp Fiction, it certainly has had a huge influence on cinema. My favorite Tarentino film is Kill Bill Vol. 1 however, I never tire of watching it.

With Ray & Greg, I prefer Kill Bill.

[Todd]

To paraphrase Gore Vidal, "it's America's only art form."

I would have thought jazz would warrant at least a mention, but then that would detract from a faux high-minded gripe.

[Karl Henning]

(* chortle *)

[TheGSMoeller]

Otherwise, he's yet another American cultural embarrassment.

Please don't tell us you prefer M. Night Shyamalan.   

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

I would have thought jazz would warrant at least a mention, but then that would detract from a faux high-minded gripe.

Agree - it was advertising that Vidal claimed was America's own.  The anti-violence schtick is mine own.

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

Please don't tell us you prefer M. Night Shyamalan.

No, not going to happen.